colmac2000

I thought the cabinet simulations are supposedly the weakest element of the PodHD? That's what people say anyway. I wouldn't know, I don't use them. I started off using the Pod in 4CM but I have the amp sims sounding pretty much as good as my valve amps now so I am going straight into the FX return, as mentioned above. I also have a Magnum 44 and that doesn't have quite the liveliness or body of the valve amp power stage but it's pretty close.

I'd have thought so too...seems unlikely that people will spend 3 times as much just because there isn't a Line 6 product at that pricepoint.

I have it set to Combo Power Amp...I tried them all and that sounded the best. Even though I'm using a stack. :) I tried a EHX Magnum 44 today and it sounded really good! Better than the GPA400 I think...although I have only tried it at home volumes so far. It's really weird to get such a monster sound out of such a tiny box! Very cool.

I can't remember where I read it (probably this forum!) but someone was saying they replaced the built-in cabs in the Pod with a H&K Red Box in the loop and got very good results...it's a shame you can't load 3rd party IR's the way you can with Amplifire, Helix, Fractal etc... So far I have only used the Pod into real cabs but it would be nice to have decent cabs for silent practice & recording.

Yeah, I pretty much decided to sell it a few weeks ago - packed it up, took photos. I think I even listed it on ebay. Then I had a change of heart, unpacked it again and had another go. I'm not sure if the HD500X is particularly difficult to dial in - people seem to say it is. I have had a GT-8 and a GT-10 in the past...as well as a POD XT live. My sense is that the Pod HD is actually easier. The Boss units were insanely complicated. I found it incredibly hard to configure anything on those. Anyway, I am starting to feel like I'm getting my head around the Pod and I'm not sure that one of the high end modellers would offer me much more when it comes to tone. I'm sure they'd be easier to dial in but I don't know if I'd really appreciate the difference in terms of pure tone. Maybe I would - I'd love to try but I don't really want to shell out £1500-2000 for the privilege! Out of interest I pulled my Orange TH-30 head out of the cupboard the other day and tried plugging straight into that...and also running the Pod straight into the FX return. The valve power stage certainly adds some life to the tone and I thought it sounded really, really good. The amp by itself sounds great too...but if I'm honest, I think I preferred the sound of the Pod into the fx return! The flexibility of the Pod sells it too. I'd love to try a Helix through the same setup. Or a AX8. Or a Headrush, if they ever hit the stores!

Just thought I'd do an update on this...I have been using the Pod for rehearsals for a few weeks and it's sounding pretty good. I'm running it into an inexpensive power amp (Harley Benton GPA400) and then a Marshall 1936v. I really like using the expression pedal to control the amp model gain...it's an amazingly versatile way to set up a patch. I'm really just using a single patch to cover the whole set. I'd struggle to go back to traditional amp and pedals tbh! I have cabs switched off and I've settled on the Treadplate amp at the moment...I stuck a parametric eq after it to dial out the top end nasal nastiness that seems to be in all of the amp models (thanks Line 6!) and also used the same eq to boost the low end. TBH it sounds monster - really fat and full. I got good comments from my bandmates at the last practice ("have you been tweaking it? Sounds good!"). That was after changing from the Uber model to the Treadplate. I'm pretty happy :) I find the other higher gain amps a bit boxy sounding...I wonder if it's a better approach to choose a low gain one and add overdrive pedals...

...meanwhile, back on planet Earth... ;)

I guess that's what I'm wondering...is it good? :) My only experience of power amps are the valve power sections of my valve amps, which I have used to power the Pod via the FX return. I would guess these are 'good' power amps in that they probably produce a pretty warm, full-sounding tone. Listening to YT comparisons of power amps, I can certainly hear that some sound warmer and fuller than others, so it's not all about loudness. And it's not always the valve ones that I prefer. I haven't heard any comparisons of the Magnum 44 though and I'd be concerned that it might sound harsh or sterile.

Because I'm not a professional, I guess :D Thanks for your help though.

I hear you but the reality is that I'm not touring with Alice Cooper...not this year anyway. I am playing pubs with unpredictable PA setups, usually not mic'd up. For the past 10 years I have used valve amps into a Marshall 2x12 and I'm not ready to go direct quite yet. Anyway, my plan is to be using the Pod into a standard guitar cab via a suitable power amp, preferably not too heavy or expensive. The Rocktron Velocity 300 looks like a good option but is fairly pricey...but if that's what a decent sounding amp costs, then fair enough. But if I can get similar results from the pedal-sized Magnum 44 then great! Seems too good to be true though. :)

Yeah I've heard that it's loud :) Does it sound decent compared to something more expensive though?

...and do you have any sound clips? Which power amps do you use? Any thoughts about this as a setup? My plan is to use a HD500X into something like a Rocktron Velocity 300 into a Marshall 1936v. I don't have the Rocktron yet. I could also run it into the FX return of my amps (either an Orange TH30 or a H&K Switchblade) but ideally I want to avoid having to cart those to gigs. :) What about the Magnum 44? It surely can't be good enough for gigs? Can it?

Hmm...I don't think I changed the output mode. I naively assumed the headphone output would be optimised for headphones...I can't remember if I tried different output modes. I will tonight though!

Have you seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5XiMGYcVcQ I was surprised by the one I preferred out of the 4 :)

Oddly, I am finding the cleans and crunch tones much easier to find in the pod but I have struggled a bit to dial in convincing high gain settings. Which I think is the opposite of what most people find.

Well, I decided to hang on to the Pod after all and persevere a bit. I re-assembled my old style pedal board again, so I can use that for gigging and play with the Pod on the side and see where I end up. I was teetering on the brink of going for one of the high end modellers...but researching the options has made me think that I probably prefer the tones from the Fractal gear, compared to the Helix and while the cost of the Helix is something I can just about live with, the Axe is just that little bit too much! :) Plus I think I'd probably suffer a bit from option paralysis with the Fractal units. Anyway, I thought it was probably worth persevering with the Pod for a bit and seeing if I can't get what I need out of it. One quick question - I plugged in headphones for the first time the other day, expecting all the direct patches to sound great and they really didn't...they were very bottom-end heavy and fuzzy. Not at all like the direct tones I expected to get - is there some basic setting I should change when using headphones? Thanks.

Well, thanks for the help guys but I've decided to give up and sell the Pod. I'll go back to stompboxes for a while. I just can't get it to sound convincing at all for my purposes - i.e. through a power amp into a guitar speaker cab at live volumes. I can see how it sounds cool with headphones or for recording, or maybe going direct into a PA or FRFR setup but that's not a setup that's practical for me to go with. Thanks though!

Hmm...I'm thinking I might have to go Helix or something...I keep thinking I've got a decent tone but then when I go back to my valve amp it's just a different thing... Dunno.

I have a patch which is set up so the front 4 switches send midi programme changes to my amp to select channels...what I'd like to happen is for the LEDs for those four switches to act like radio buttons so that I can easily see what channel I am on at any given time...I'm guessing this isn't possible but I thought I'd ask, just in case! :) Maybe if I assigned all 4 of the switches to the same 'dummy' effect block (something that doesn't really do anything)...then when I hit one of them it would light up...and when I hit another one, that one would light up and the previous one would go off. Just a thought. It's not a big deal but it would be nice to have.

I think with the 'pre' amps and full versions, it's just a case of finding which one sounds better. I am also finding that sometimes it sounds better to have the cab modelling switched on, even though I am going through the power section of a valve amp into a real cab and shouldn't really need it. I'm learning that the Pod is all about trying stuff rather than hard and fast rules. 😀

Others will come in with more knowledge I'm sure but from my experience with some amps the master volume will still be in the circuit and other not. It won't damage the amp - it's as if the pod volume is now the master volume for the amp. Your pod is using the full power of the power amp, as required.

Interesting...does the magnum really sound alright? Hard to imagine such a small thing sounding monster! Out of interest, what other power amps do people use?

I'm not sure I'll leave it that way tbh...I'm just experimenting at the moment. I like the idea of the standard 4CM as I can switch between my real amp pre-amp and Pod amp sims at will. So far though, that has just resulted in me spending a load of time A/B-ing real pre-amp with sims trying to get them 'as good' and it was all getting a bit frustrating. :angry: Then earlier today I had a weird thing where I tweaked the volume on the pod and I suddenly seemed to lose both pre-amps...so I was just playing directly into the power amp. I just couldn't figure out what was going on at all :huh: ...I restarted the unit and it seemed to be fine. Not sure if the unit is faulty or using 4CM in that was was confusing it somehow. Either way, I have been verging on going back to stompboxes or maybe digging deep in the pockets for a Helix...I don't think it is nearly as fiddly as the Pod and apparently sounds a lot more convincing. For me though, that kind of outlay feels a bit overkill...I already have a programmable valve amp with 128 slots, so I don't really need the best digital amp modelling in the world. What I need really is a midi controller with easy access to effects. Which the Pod does give me. I partly wanted to try the 'crazy' 4CM so I wouldn't be so tempted to mess with the amp sims and I can focus on actually playing the guitar. :) Doing it that way also means that any changes I make to my core amp tones on the switchblade and store in one of the 128 slots are applied across all patches that use that stored tone...rather than having to go into each preset and make the same changes to each amp sim. That said, I haven't really noticed tone suck from the FX loop either tbh...I did look at some guides before I got the unit so I immediately set it up to deal with some of the known issues. It actually sounds fine to me. I might go back to doing it that way.

Someone recommended a different way of doing 4CM...set up the inputs so input 1 is the guitar and input 2 is AUX, then instead of using the FX loop on the Pod, use the L and R outputs, the main input and the AUX input. Then pan the outputs hard left and right...then distortions go in path A and mod fx go in path B. Cunning, eh? You can't use the looper (I never would) but otherwise it works really well. It avoids the tone-sucky FX loop and means you basically double the number of available FX blocks you can use. So, I have it set up now to use midi so the front 4 switches call up the first 4 presets on my Switchblade and the back row switch on various effects. And I can finally relax and play some music! Cool. :)

That's interesting...I assume you have your amp set very clean?